Top 19 Fastest Bachelor’s Degrees With No Application Fees

Key Infor­ma­tion:

• Top fastest bachelor’s degrees with no appli­ca­tion fees include those from pop­u­lar online schools like South­ern New Hamp­shire Uni­ver­si­ty, Pur­due Uni­ver­si­ty Glob­al, and Col­orado State Uni­ver­si­ty Glob­al.
• These pro­grams offer accel­er­at­ed for­mats, allow­ing stu­dents to com­plete their degrees more quick­ly, often through online coursework. 
• Schools waive appli­ca­tion fees, mak­ing the process more acces­si­ble and afford­able for students.
• Pro­grams are avail­able in var­i­ous fields includ­ing busi­ness, health­care, and tech­nol­o­gy, pro­vid­ing flex­i­ble options for busy adults and work­ing professionals.

Sev­en in 10 U.S. col­lege seniors will grad­u­ate with stu­dent loan debt that cur­rent­ly aver­ages $37,172. Get­ting tied to decades of loan repay­ments can hin­der your career’s salary poten­tial and put you at risk for cred­it-wreck­ing defaults. Bor­row­ers should cut down their loan amounts by nix­ing unnec­es­sary costs like appli­ca­tion fees. An appli­ca­tion fee of $25 to $90 is charged by many col­leges’ admis­sion offices to process doc­u­ments from new stu­dents. Look­ing for free appli­ca­tion schools or waivers can real­ly pro­tect your wal­let. Shrink­ing your study time by pur­su­ing accel­er­at­ed bach­e­lor’s degrees is anoth­er great mon­ey-sav­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty. Squeez­ing course­work into short­er mod­ules will hit fast for­ward on your degree and career start date. There­fore, we’ve out­lined the Top 20 Fastest Bach­e­lor’s Degrees With No Appli­ca­tion Fee to accel­er­ate your admis­sion process cheap.

To cre­ate this list, our method­ol­o­gy was based upon the Niche search tool. We fil­tered out four-year, under­grad­u­ate col­leges that charge $0 for appli­ca­tions. Afford­abil­i­ty remained a pri­or­i­ty as we elim­i­nat­ed uni­ver­si­ties billing bach­e­lor’s stu­dents more than $1,500 per cred­it. Since online cours­es are the quick­est, we focused on dis­tance learn­ing schools with ses­sions short­er than 10 weeks. Hav­ing at least three online bac­calau­re­ate degrees where trans­fers can grad­u­ate in under three years was required. We nev­er sac­ri­fice qual­i­ty, so we dou­ble checked region­al or nation­al accred­i­ta­tion state­ments. Our final order­ing was dic­tat­ed by rank­ings pub­lished by the U.S. News, Niche, Wash­ing­ton Month­ly, and others.

Here are our selec­tions for the Top 20 Fastest Bach­e­lor’s Degrees With No Appli­ca­tion Fee:

1. LeTourneau University

Found­ed in 1946 to train R.G. LeTourneau’s fac­to­ry employ­ees, LeTourneau Uni­ver­si­ty is a pri­vate, non­prof­it Chris­t­ian tech­ni­cal insti­tute that devel­oped a $20 mil­lion endow­ment and adult-friend­ly cul­ture for serv­ing 1,782 under­grads in East Texas and online. LETU is ranked Amer­i­ca’s 33rd best online col­lege on Niche and the West­’s 16th top val­ue by the U.S. News. Online stu­dents can apply for 13 accel­er­at­ed bach­e­lor’s pro­grams, includ­ing the Avi­a­tion Stud­ies B.S. and Psy­chol­o­gy B.A., with eight-week cours­es for free.

Bach­e­lor’s Tuition: $380/credit

Learn more about the Top 20 Fastest Bach­e­lor’s Degrees With No Appli­ca­tion Fee at LeTourneau Uni­ver­si­ty here.

2. Indiana Wesleyan University

Dis­trib­ut­ing $146 mil­lion in annu­al finan­cial aid, Indi­ana Wes­leyan Uni­ver­si­ty is a pri­vate, evan­gel­i­cal Chris­t­ian CCCU mem­ber led by Pres­i­dent Dr. David Wright in Mar­i­on that’s kept the appli­ca­tion free for 10,877 under­grads. IWU was ranked Amer­i­ca’s 16th best online col­lege on Niche and the Mid­west­’s 13th best uni­ver­si­ty by the U.S. News. Online trans­fers with 60+ pre­vi­ous cred­its could com­plete 11 online bach­e­lor’s degrees, such as the B.S. in Account­ing and B.S. in Hos­pi­tal­i­ty Man­age­ment, in 18–20 months.

Bach­e­lor’s Tuition: $1,115/credit

Learn more about the Top 20 Fastest Bach­e­lor’s Degrees With No Appli­ca­tion Fee at Indi­ana Wes­leyan Uni­ver­si­ty here.

3. Union Institute & University

Known for note­wor­thy alums like Sid­ney Har­man and Jane O’Meara Driscoll Sanders, Union Insti­tute & Uni­ver­si­ty is a pri­vate, non­sec­tar­i­an HLC-accred­it­ed research cen­ter in Cincin­nati since 1964 that’s enrolling 1,599 under­grads. Union was ranked Amer­i­ca’s 20th best online col­lege and 126th best free appli­ca­tion school on Niche. Accept­ing up to 90 trans­fer cred­its, Union has 13 fast bach­e­lor’s degrees online, includ­ing the Emer­gency Ser­vices Man­age­ment B.S. and Ear­ly Child­hood Stud­ies B.A., start­ing every eight weeks.

Bach­e­lor’s Tuition: $395/credit

Learn more about the Top 20 Fastest Bach­e­lor’s Degrees With No Appli­ca­tion Fee at Union Insti­tute & Uni­ver­si­ty here.

4. Loyola University Chicago

Accept­ing free appli­ca­tions until Feb­ru­ary 1st, Loy­ola Uni­ver­si­ty Chica­go is a pri­vate, Jesuit six-cam­pus high­er learn­ing insti­tu­tion led by Chan­cel­lor Michael J. Garanzi­ni, S.J., with a $535 mil­lion endow­ment to instruct 11,129 under­grads and employ 784 fac­ul­ty. LUC is ranked Amer­i­ca’s 142nd best uni­ver­si­ty and 21st top online col­lege by the U.S. News. Sev­en online bach­e­lor’s com­ple­tion pro­grams like the B.A. in Man­age­ment and B.A. in Infor­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy have just 13 Fast-Track cours­es of eight weeks each.

Bach­e­lor’s Tuition: $375/credit

5. Siena Heights University

Report­ing 98 per­cent stu­dent sat­is­fac­tion, Siena Heights Uni­ver­si­ty is a pri­vate, coed­u­ca­tion­al teach­ing insti­tute oper­at­ed by the Adri­an Domini­can Sis­ters in Adri­an, Michi­gan, that’s attract­ed 1,200 under­grads from 37 states to its Online Learn­ing Pro­gram since 2004. SHU is ranked the Mid­west­’s 55th top col­lege with the 21st best bach­e­lor’s degrees nation­al­ly by the U.S. News. Through Can­vas, online stu­dents select from eight accel­er­at­ed, 20-month bac­calau­re­ate com­ple­tion pro­grams, such as the BBA in Mar­ket­ing and B.A. in Pro­fes­sion­al Communication.

Bach­e­lor’s Tuition: $792/credit

Learn more about the Top 20 Fastest Bach­e­lor’s Degrees With No Appli­ca­tion Fee at Siena Heights Uni­ver­si­ty here.

6. Grace Christian University

Accred­it­ed by the ABHE, Grace Chris­t­ian Uni­ver­si­ty is a non­prof­it, faith-based Chris­t­ian insti­tu­tion found­ed in 1939 that’s now enrolling 900 under­grads upon its 23 acres in Grand Rapids, Michi­gan, and online. Grace is ranked Amer­i­ca’s 35th top reli­gious stud­ies school and 38th best online col­lege on Niche. Admit­ting cohorts of 10–16 adults every six weeks, Grace has no appli­ca­tion fee for 11 quick online bach­e­lor’s degrees, includ­ing the B.S. in Human Ser­vices and B.S. in Lead­er­ship & Ministry.

Bach­e­lor’s Tuition: $800/credit

Learn more about the Top 20 Fastest Bach­e­lor’s Degrees With No Appli­ca­tion Fee at Grace Bible Col­lege here.

7. Florida Institute of Technology

Endowed for $66.2 mil­lion, Flori­da Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy is a pri­vate, coed­u­ca­tion­al “A+ School for B Stu­dents” that’s led by Pres­i­dent Dwayne McCay in Mel­bourne with 3,586 under­grads. FIT is ranked Amer­i­ca’s 151st best uni­ver­si­ty with the 68th top online bac­calau­re­ate teach­ing by the U.S. News. Charg­ing a $0 appli­ca­tion fee, Flori­da Tech Online fea­tures fast, eight-week terms on Uni­ver­si­ty Alliance for fin­ish­ing 17 bach­e­lor’s pro­grams like the B.A. in Human Resources Man­age­ment and B.A. in Foren­sic Psychology.

Bach­e­lor’s Tuition: $1,201/credit

Learn more about the Top 20 Fastest Bach­e­lor’s Degrees With No Appli­ca­tion Fee at Flori­da Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy here.

8. American Public University System

Giv­en its fifth OLC Effec­tive Prac­tice Award in 2017, the Amer­i­can Pub­lic Uni­ver­si­ty Sys­tem has two pri­vate, for-prof­it online insti­tu­tions direct­ed by Pres­i­dent Karan Pow­ell, PhD, in Charles Town to edu­cate 98,400 under­grads who serve oth­ers. APUS is rec­og­nized for Amer­i­ca’s 92nd best online bach­e­lor’s degrees by the U.S. News and eighth cheap­est tuition on Val­ue Col­leges. Online learn­ers won’t pay fees to enter 45 bac­calau­re­ate pro­grams, includ­ing the Mid­dle East­ern Stud­ies B.A. and His­to­ry B.A., with eight-week courses.

Bach­e­lor’s Tuition: $350/credit

Learn more about the Top 20 Fastest Bach­e­lor’s Degrees With No Appli­ca­tion Fee at Amer­i­can Pub­lic Uni­ver­si­ty Sys­tem here.

9. American Intercontinental University

Estab­lished in Lucerne by the Bar­nettes in 1970, Amer­i­can Inter­con­ti­nen­tal Uni­ver­si­ty is a for-prof­it, HLC-accred­it­ed free appli­ca­tion school acquired by Career Edu­ca­tion Cor­po­ra­tion that’s engag­ing 15,500 online under­grads. Grant­ed the 2010 CCA Inno­va­tion Award, AIU is con­grat­u­lat­ed by the U.S. News for Amer­i­ca’s 110th best bach­e­lor’s edu­ca­tion online. On the Intel­li­path plat­form, stu­dents can trans­fer up to 75 per­cent of cours­es and fin­ish 25 bach­e­lor’s degrees, includ­ing the B.S. in Crim­i­nal Jus­tice and BBA in Entre­pre­neur­ship, in only nine months.

Bach­e­lor’s Tuition: $302/credit

Learn more about the Top 20 Fastest Bach­e­lor’s Degrees With No Appli­ca­tion Fee at Amer­i­can Inter­con­ti­nen­tal Uni­ver­si­ty here.

10. Champlain College

Cel­e­brat­ing its 140th anniver­sary in 2018, Cham­plain Col­lege is a pri­vate, non­prof­it bac­calau­re­ate insti­tu­tion orig­i­nal­ly called Burling­ton Busi­ness School that’s now endowed for $17.4 mil­lion and deliv­er­ing “Upside-Down Cur­ricu­lum” to 2,000 full-time under­grads. Cham­plain is ranked Amer­i­ca’s 13th best online col­lege on Niche with the 148th top online bach­e­lor’s degrees by the U.S. News. Speed is max­i­mized in 11 online bach­e­lor’s degrees, such as the B.S. in Eco­nom­ic Crime Inves­ti­ga­tion and B.S. in Web Design, with sev­en-week Can­vas sessions.

Bach­e­lor’s Tuition: $1,194/credit

Learn more about the Top 20 Fastest Bach­e­lor’s Degrees With No Appli­ca­tion Fee at Cham­plain Col­lege here.

11. Averett University

Oper­at­ing 12 Vir­ginia cam­pus­es from Danville to Rich­mond and online, Averett Uni­ver­si­ty is a pri­vate, coed­u­ca­tion­al Bap­tist col­lege direct­ed by Pres­i­dent Tiffany McKil­lip Franks on a $19.3 mil­lion endow­ment to instruct 2,071 under­grads. Averett is ranked the South’s 17th best uni­ver­si­ty by the U.S. News and Amer­i­ca’s 175th most con­ser­v­a­tive col­lege on Niche. Man­dat­ing 54+ trans­fer cred­its with a min­i­mum 2.0 GPA, Averett’s six online bach­e­lor’s degree com­ple­tion pro­grams like the B.A.S. in Lead­er­ship Stud­ies and RN-BSN are fast.

Bach­e­lor’s Tuition: $1,046/credit

Learn more about the Top 20 Fastest Bach­e­lor’s Degrees With No Appli­ca­tion Fee at Averett Uni­ver­si­ty here.

12. Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College

Ded­i­cat­ed to “Vir­tus cum Sci­en­tia,” Saint Mary-of-the-Woods Col­lege is a pri­vate, non­prof­it Catholic free appli­ca­tion school with HLC approval that hon­ors Sis­ter Mary Joseph Pomeroy by superbly teach­ing 1,577 under­grads on its Terre Haute cam­pus and online. SMWC is ranked the Mid­west­’s 22nd top uni­ver­si­ty and 12th best val­ue col­lege by the U.S. News. Launched in 2011, Woods Online has 18 accel­er­at­ed bach­e­lor’s com­ple­tion pro­grams of 51–64 cred­its, includ­ing the B.S. in Para­le­gal Stud­ies and B.A. in English.

Bach­e­lor’s Tuition: $873/credit

Learn more about the Top 20 Fastest Bach­e­lor’s Degrees With No Appli­ca­tion Fee at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods Col­lege here.

13. Buena Vista University

Affil­i­at­ed with the Pres­by­ter­ian Church USA, Bue­na Vista Uni­ver­si­ty is a pri­vate, four-year Iowa Chris­t­ian col­lege locat­ed in Storm Lake that’s giv­ing per­son­al­ized atten­tion and free appli­ca­tions to 1,714 full-time under­grads on a $122.3 mil­lion endow­ment. BVU is declared the Mid­west­’s 24th best col­lege and third most vet-friend­ly school by the U.S. News. Six annu­al start times allow asso­ciate trans­fers to quick­ly fin­ish 13 online bach­e­lor’s degrees, such as the Health Ser­vices Lead­er­ship B.A. and Crim­i­nol­o­gy B.A., in 1.5 years.

Bach­e­lor’s Tuition: $1,043/credit

Learn more about the Top 20 Fastest Bach­e­lor’s Degrees With No Appli­ca­tion Fee at Bue­na Vista Uni­ver­si­ty here.

14. Mississippi University for Women

Estab­lished as the Colum­bus Female Insti­tute in 1847, the Mis­sis­sip­pi Uni­ver­si­ty for Women has become a pub­lic, coed­u­ca­tion­al SACS-accred­it­ed school orga­nized by Pres­i­dent Jim Bors­ing in Lown­des Coun­ty to edu­cate 2,745 under­grads. MUW is named the South’s 52nd best uni­ver­si­ty and 48th most val­ue-added insti­tu­tion by the U.S. News. Offer­ing 24/7 sup­port and $0 appli­ca­tion fees, the 13 online bach­e­lor’s degrees take 2+2 for­mats for com­plet­ing pro­grams like the B.S. in Pub­lic Health and BSBA in Legal Admin­is­tra­tion in 24 months.

Bach­e­lor’s Tuition: $431/credit

Learn more about the Top 20 Fastest Bach­e­lor’s Degrees With No Appli­ca­tion Fee at Mis­sis­sip­pi Uni­ver­si­ty for Women here.

15. Roberts Wesleyan College

Named for Methodist bish­op Ben­jamin Titus Roberts in 1945, Roberts Wes­leyan Col­lege is a pri­vate, Christ-cen­tered lib­er­al arts school let­ting 1,708 under­grads apply for free to its 188-acre West­ern New York cam­pus in Rochester or Online Learn­ing Divi­sion. RWC is ranked the North’s 78th best uni­ver­si­ty and 28th top val­ue col­lege by the U.S. News. Four online bach­e­lor’s com­ple­tion pro­grams, includ­ing the Orga­ni­za­tion­al Man­age­ment B.S. and Health Admin­is­tra­tion B.S., can be fin­ished in only 15 months by asso­ciate degree grads.

Bach­e­lor’s Tuition: $955/credit

Learn more about the Top 20 Fastest Bach­e­lor’s Degrees With No Appli­ca­tion Fee at Roberts Wes­leyan Col­lege here.

16. Point Park University

Led by Pres­i­dent Paul Hen­ni­gan, PhD, Point Park Uni­ver­si­ty is a pri­vate, non­sec­tar­i­an RSC mem­ber formed in 1960 that’s now endowed for $34.2 mil­lion to enroll 3,276 under­grads face-to-face in Pitts­burgh’s Gold­en Tri­an­gle and whol­ly online. PPU is ranked Amer­i­ca’s 215th most lib­er­al col­lege on Niche and the North’s 102nd best uni­ver­si­ty by the U.S. News. Busy pro­fes­sion­als can eas­i­ly access fast, eight-week cours­es for fin­ish­ing 10 online bach­e­lor’s degrees like the Inter­dis­ci­pli­nary Design B.A. and Pub­lic Rela­tions B.A. in two years.

Bach­e­lor’s Tuition: $989/credit

Learn more about the Top 20 Fastest Bach­e­lor’s Degrees With No Appli­ca­tion Fee at Point Park Uni­ver­si­ty here.

17. St. Joseph’s College of Maine

Stand­ing on Seba­go Lake’s shore­line, St. Joseph’s Col­lege of Maine is a pri­vate, com­mu­ni­ty-engaged Catholic teach­ing insti­tute endowed for $17 mil­lion to edu­cate 2,775 under­grads. SJCME is ranked the North’s 136th best col­lege by the U.S. News and 237th top val­ue in Wash­ing­ton Month­ly. Start­ing class­es on the first of every month, 27 online fast-track bach­e­lor’s degrees, such as the B.S. in Radi­o­log­ic Sci­ence Admin­is­tra­tion and B.A. in The­o­log­i­cal Stud­ies, are avail­able with­out appli­ca­tion fees.

Bach­e­lor’s Tuition: $1,111/credit

Learn more about the Top 20 Fastest Bach­e­lor’s Degrees With No Appli­ca­tion Fee at St. Joseph’s Col­lege of Maine here.

18. Franklin University

Waiv­ing appli­ca­tion fees for its near­ly 10,000 U.S. under­grads, Franklin Uni­ver­si­ty is a pri­vate, adult-cen­tric Ohio school with HLC accred­i­ta­tion that’s led by Pres­i­dent David R. Deck­er to deliv­er accel­er­at­ed cours­es of six to 15 weeks in Colum­bus and online. Franklin is deemed Amer­i­ca’s 39th best online col­lege by OnlineDegreeReviews.org and 215th top col­lege loca­tion on Niche. Online stu­dents save time and tuition by trans­fer­ring up to 94 cred­its into 35 bach­e­lor’s pro­grams like the Ener­gy Man­age­ment B.S. and Infor­ma­tion Sys­tems Audit­ing B.S.

Bach­e­lor’s Tuition: $266/credit

Learn more about the Top 20 Fastest Bach­e­lor’s Degrees With No Appli­ca­tion Fee at Franklin Uni­ver­si­ty here.

19. Independence University

Accred­it­ed by the ACCSC, Inde­pen­dence Uni­ver­si­ty is a pri­vate, non­prof­it online insti­tu­tion owned by the Cen­ter for Excel­lence in High­er Edu­ca­tion in Salt Lake City that has giv­en free appli­ca­tions to 5,704 under­grads under Pres­i­dent Eric Juh­lin. Inde­pen­dence is ranked Amer­i­ca’s 82nd best online col­lege by OnlineDegreeReviews.org and 221st top busi­ness school on Niche. Rang­ing from 20–36 months, 15 bach­e­lor’s degrees like the B.S. in Graph­ic Arts and B.S. in Res­pi­ra­to­ry Care Man­age­ment offer fast online tracks to success.

Bach­e­lor’s Tuition: $461/credit

What is the Application Process for Most Colleges?

Your col­lege appli­ca­tion is the first step to a high­er edu­ca­tion. Enroll­ment starts here!

Well before you grad­u­ate high school — prefer­ably in the spring of your junior year or fall of your senior year — you will need to learn the admis­sion require­ments of the school you want to attend. In almost all cas­es you will need:

• appli­ca­tion form
• col­lege appli­ca­tion fees (though many schools offer appli­ca­tion fee waivers for prospec­tive stu­dents with finan­cial need)
• let­ters of recommendation
• test scores (ACT, SAT, etc)
• offi­cial transcripts/school transcripts

Almost every col­lege offers an online appli­ca­tion today, and many take part in the Com­mon Appli­ca­tion pro­gram). From there, dif­fer­ent under­grad­u­ate pro­grams have dif­fer­ent require­ments. For instance, a state col­lege or state uni­ver­si­ty may have low­er stan­dards than a pri­vate uni­ver­si­ty. A catholic uni­ver­si­ty may expect stu­dents to be churchgoers.

Inter­na­tion­al stu­dents often have to pass a lan­guage com­pe­ten­cy exam as well for under­grad­u­ate and grad­u­ate pro­grams. Even online schools will usu­al­ly expect com­pe­ten­cy for eli­gi­bil­i­ty. On-cam­pus and online degree pro­grams often have dif­fer­ent require­ments as well.

Prospec­tive grad­u­ate stu­dents look­ing into a master’s degree pro­grams, doc­tor­al pro­grams, cer­tifi­cate pro­grams, or anoth­er kind of grad­u­ate degree, will have oth­er stan­dards. Some, like Ari­zona State Uni­ver­si­ty, except every­one who applies. Rank­ings like U.S. News & World Report can help guide your choices.

Relat­ed:

10 Most Afford­able Bach­e­lor’s in Radi­a­tion Science

10 Most Afford­able Bach­e­lor’s in Mechan­i­cal Engineering

10 Most Afford­able Bach­e­lor’s in Busi­ness Analytics

10 Most Afford­able Online Bach­e­lor’s in Train­ing and Development

10 Most Afford­able Bach­e­lor’s in Real Estate

10 Most Afford­able Bach­e­lor’s in Nursing

10 Most Afford­able Bach­e­lor’s in Legal Studies

10 Most Afford­able Bach­e­lor’s in Actu­ar­i­al Science

10 Most Afford­able Bach­e­lor’s in Sup­ply Chain Management

10 Most Afford­able Bach­e­lor’s in Busi­ness Administration

10 Most Afford­able Bach­e­lor’s in Engi­neer­ing Management